


Nerve Endings (Stay)

by Decaykid



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Behavior, Drinking, Explicit Language, Implied Sexual Content, Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-21 06:24:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17637467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Decaykid/pseuds/Decaykid
Summary: Tommy is close to an epiphany.





	Nerve Endings (Stay)

**Author's Note:**

> Just trying to get a feel for the characters, their voices and dynamics.

It started off as a way to blow off steam. After the business was discussed, Tommy would have a few drinks while Alfie would share stories or anecdotes, sometimes offer advice, then they'd find a place- if they were in Birmingham, it'd be a guest room and if they were in London, one of the many clubs under Alfie's employ where they could slip into a private room. But no matter where they went, or what time it was one thing remained the same: Alfie always left afterwards and while Tommy never understood it, he's never challenged it.

It's late afternoon when Alfie stops by. Tommy's in his study when Mary tells him of Alfie's arrival. They meet in the drawing room. Tommy pours himself a drink as Alfie gives him a rundown of some figures and business from the last few weeks. Tommy explains profits have been good, that Alfie should expect an increase in the money Tommy gives him, his percentage that they agreed on back when the partnership was just beginning. Then Tommy finishes his drink, and the pair go upstairs to a guest room where Alfie toys with Tommy and takes his time drawing an orgasm out of him. Afterwards, it's Tommy leaving.

"Ada will be here shortly," he explains as he gets dressed, "she was visiting some old friends, wanted to stop here on her way back. And it does Charlie good, to see his cousin. He doesn't have lot of playmates."

Both men are dressed and in the foyer by the time Ada arrives. Mary takes Karl to go see Charlie and the three adults settle into the sitting room. They talk for a few hours, and Alfie sees that Tommy is different around Ada than he is his brothers- more relaxed, more smiles. Maybe it's because she's not part of the business, he thinks. Maybe around her, he can jut be. After another round of tea and whiskey, Ada announces her departure, leaving Alfie and Tommy to the silence. Tommy glances at his watch, is about to ask if Alfie wants to slip back up to the room and kill another hour or two, but Alfie is standing from the couch with a grunt.

"It's about time I get going as well, yeah."

"You don't want to stay a bit longer?" Tommy asks as he also stands.

"No, no. It's gettin' late. The sooner I take off the better."

Tommy considers, decides to take a gamble.

"Why don't you, uh-" he clears his throat, "stay the night? You can drive back in the morning..."

Alfie looks at Tommy, long and hard, as though he's searching for something. Having no idea what it is Alfie is looking for, Tommy stands there, trying to look as passive and earnest as possible.

"No mate, I really should get goin'." Tommy nods, follows behind Alfie as they make their way from the sitting room to the foyer.

"Not that I don't appreciate your generous hospitality, to which I do believe I've already shown my deep gratitude."

Tommy finds himself smiling, even if he doesn't understand Alfie's strange hang ups. Is it superstition? A preference? Religious? He watches Alfie open the door.

"What's the matter," Tommy teases, "afraid you'll fall in love?"

The door comes to a stop and Alfie hesitates before ha partially turns to look at Tommy, and there's something vulnerable lurking in his dark eyes.

"Afraid you won't." Alfie says.

Tommy stands there, frozen, smile still plastered on his face though all amusement is gone, replaced instead by something dull and numbing.

Alfie almost seems to flinch.

"Goodnight, Tommy." He says, and then he's gone.

Tommy drinks. And then he drinks some more. And then it's midnight, and it's one and he's starting a new bottle and he's no closer to understanding. He's confused, and angry and he's grabbing for his phone, tugging it along his desktop, over papers and contracts until it's right in front of him, nestled between bottle and glass. He dials a number, listens to it ring four, five, six, seven times. He finishes off his drink, pours another.

"I don't care for what kind of fuckin' business you got with me, callin' at-"

"Why'd you- why'd you say that Alfie?" Tommy slurs. Everything he's been planning to say has been abandoned due to his tongue feeling like molasses in his mouth.

"For fuck's sake Tommy."

"Why did- why would you say- something like that?" He stammers again.

"You're drunk."

Alfie sounds agitated, and Tommy thinks he wants him to be, thinks he wants Alfie to feel just half of the turmoil he's feeling right now, all over those three stupid words.

"We had a good thing going." Tommy accuses.

"Go to bed." Alfie says, and it's a command.

"Why did, why did you have to go and say something like that?" Tommy yells.

"I'm not havin' this fuckin' talk with you over the phone, right? Not in the middle of the fuckin' night when you're so fuckin' inebriated you can't even fuckin' speak coherently."

Tommy's hand tightens around his glass.

"And before you get anymore little cute fuckin' ideas about callin' me up in the middle of the fuckin' night, I'm disconnectin' the fuckin' line."

And with that, the phone call ends, but the conversation is far from over.

He doesn't call Alfie when he's sober the next morning. He doesn't even think of him. Instead, he tucks it all away into some nice, neat space in the back of his mind where it stays and he continues on with his business, day in and day out, until the weeks pass and it come time for Tommy to make a trip tp London to pay Alfie his cut of Tommy's profits.

He meets Ollie in the front, like usual. He's led into the office, like usual. He sits across from Alfie, like usual. He lights up a cigarette, tells Alfie hello, like usual. Alfie offers him a drink, Tommy picks whiskey, like usual. Tommy hands him the money, tells him business is going good.

"Right, yeah, that's good mate, that's good."

Alfie opens one of the drawers, drops the money into it, closes it.

"And, as discussed, I will look into purchasin' the wharf a ways down. Think I'll be payin' the foreman a visit sometime tomorrow mornin'."

Tommy smiles politely.

"Good."

"Oh, and uh, heard there's a storm out west. It's delayed the shipments a bit, yeah, but other than that, everythin's good."

Tommy nods his head.

"That's good."

"Yeah. Yeah it is." Alfie claps his hands together. "Well then, if we're done here, I'll have Ollie-"

"I want to talk about what happened."

Alfie frowns deeply, leans back heavily in his chair and he throws Tommy a hard stare.

"The fuck is there to talk about Tommy?" Alfie asks, left arm propped vertically as the pad of his thumb traces the edge of the nail of his forefinger while his right arm is on the arm rest of his chair, within reaching distance of the gun in his drawer- an old habit, Tommy hopes, and not intentional.

"We had a deal, eh?"

"Yeah, sure, I'll attest to that, yeah."

"We were just fucking around."

Alfie shrugs.

"Yeah, we were."

"So why'd you have to go and say something like that Alfie? We were having fun, and then you had to go an ruin it..."

Alfie starts laughing and Tommy swallows thickly.

They've had their disagreements in the past, especially at the beginning when their partnership was going through growing pains, but this is the first real fight they've had, and Tommy's forgotten how temperamental Alfie can be.

"So this crisis, right, is some how my fuckin' fault?" Alfie asks, each word is less amused and more raged than the last until Alfie is leaning forward on his desk, dark eyes wide and unflinching, begging for a challenge.

"You want your fun? You wanna fuck around, no strings attached? You wanna go on as we were? Fine, we can. But you listen here, there is nothin' stoppin' that, yeah, except for you."

Tommy throws Alfie a look as though he's just been struck.

"Me?"

"Yeah."

"You're the one who said you had feelings."

"And what fuckin' difference does it make? I felt a certain way about you before we started all this, I felt that way durin' and fuckin' feel that way long after we've bured this to the ground, right? And it never stopped me from gettin' into bed with you, did it?"

Alfie moves his left arm so that his elbow is on top of the desk, and he points to Tommy.

"No, it didn't. You're the one who lost your shit at the mention of 'feelin's'."

Tommy looks at Alfie defensively; his normally cool demeanor is cracking just enough to show a quiet anger.

"What are you saying?'

"I'm sayin', Tommy, that you need to have a fuckin' think. Figure out why you're in a complete rage over the prospect of me havin' feelin's for you, and figure out why the only way you could initially fuckin' conceivably talk to me about it was over the phone in the middle of the fuckin' night while you're drunk like some kind of repressed cunt! Cause if it was just fuckin' around for you, then you wouldn't be havin' such a visceral reaction, yeah?"

The silence that follows rings loudly to both men.

"Ollie!" Alfie shouts suddenly, voice booming and coarse, then he levels a hard glare at Tommy.

"Now get the fuck outta my office before I fuckin' strangle you with my bare hands."

Just then, the office door opens. Ollie lingers there, and sensing the tension he glances nervously between the two men.

"Show Mr. Shelby the way out, will you?"

Tommy returns home, and drinks, though not like last time. He takes it slowly; he's drinking to bring down his own internal walls, to confront the things he keeps hidden away, even from himself. And he thinks. That night, as he lies awake in bed, he thinks. And the next day, he thinks. And he thinks, and he thinks, until it starts to spill out from its allotted time, and it spills out everywhere else, in meetings, during business, when he's with Charlie, and he thinks until he drives himself mad with thoughts.  
Then he starts to think about the thinking. Why must he be so preoccupied? It's then he finds his truth- the absence, and the absence aches.

By the time he reaches the revelation, a month has passed, and it's time for him to make his trip to London.

"Hello Alfie." He greet as he takes his seat across from Alfie.

"Tommy." Alfie says in turn. "Would you like a drink?"

"If you don't mind." Tommy says as he lights a cigarette.

"And what do you have a taste for today?"

Tommy takes a drag off his cigarette, exhales with a sigh, and looks at Alfie through the veil of smoke.

"I thought you'd know by now."

There's a ghost of something in Alfie's expression, and then it's gone before Tommy can read it.

"Right, well, didn't want to get too personal." Alfie says as he reaches for the whiskey and a glass behind him, and Tommy places the money on the desk.

Both men watch as Alfie pours the alcohol.

"How are things goin' on your end?" Alfie asks as he caps the bottle and places it beside Tommy's glass.

"Good. Still running smoothly."

Alfie nods.

"I bought the wharf, like we talked about. I don't think Sabini was too pleased about it. Had to send him a letter."

"A letter?" Tommy asks over the rim of his glass before taking a sip.

"Yeah, well, somethin' like that."

At this, Tommy smiles.

"Ahh, so you sent him a message, eh?" Tommy asks, and he can only imagine what poor and now undoubtedly beaten and bloodied fool had to serve as Alfie's "letter" to Sabini.

Alfie's only response is a small, knowing smile that brings a mischievous warmth to his eyes and in that moment Tommy feels both at ease and a pang in his chest, like coming home after being away for too long.

The meeting goes on for a quarter hour, then twenty minutes, but business is going well, so they're soon sitting in silence, and it's not awkward but it doesn't sit right.

"Well, Tommy, if that's all then I wish you safe travels."

"Until next time." Tommy says, offering his hand as he stands. Alfie looks at it, then Tommy, and there's the flash of something unreadable again, then he's shaking Tommy's hand.

Tommy finds himself thinking again. About Alfie. About his smile. About his eyes. About how animated he gets when talking, how he moves. About his warmth. About his weight when he's on top of Tommy, and how he feels inside him. He thinks of how he can fill up an entire room, even when he's sitting quietly, staring out the window at nothing in particular.

These thoughts fill Tommy with a content sort of warmth, but at the same time the absence feels ever yawning.

Roughly two weeks after the meeting, Tommy finds himself in his study at his desk, staring uncertainly at the phone as he listens to it ring.

"Who's this?" The voice on the other end asks.

"Alfie." Tommy greets, but it's heavy like a question.

"Tommy." It's a statement and, "what do you want?" is the answer.

Tommy licks his lips. He leans back in his chair, allows his gaze to move to the ceiling of the room, and he sits in the silence as he tries to figure out exactly it is he wants to say.

"Have you been drinkin'?"

"No. No alcohol this time." He says.

And then he hesitates.

"I've been thinking about you." He confesses. Speaking those words, it makes his heart leap. But the weighted feeling on his shoulders is still there, heavy.

"Yeah?" Alfie says, and Tommy thinks he might sound uncertain.

"I like the way you tell stories."

It's another confession, another truth, but it feels wrong.

No, that isn't what he means to say.

"I like your voice."

"My voice?" Alfie asks, sounding curious, and Tommy wishes he'd keep talking, wish he'd never stop so that the silence could finally be drowned out and the absence finally filled and- oh.

"I miss you." He says, and it becomes a little easier to breathe, even though his heart is pounding in his chest.

"I'm flattered Tommy, really, I am, but I'm not drivin' all the way out to your place just to have a romp in the sack. Surely you could find someone closer to satisfy your libido."

"Wait, Alfie..." Tommy pauses, opens his mouth, vaguely moves his free hand around, remembers that Alfie can't see his hand gestures, that the silence is stretching on...

"That night... that night this whole mess happened, I think... I think I asked you to stay, for a reason."

"And what reason was that?"

"You were right. It wasn't just us fucking around. I... I wanted more. I... want more, from this. From you."

The other line is quiet, and it's killing Tommy not being able to see Alfie's face, to see what he's thinking, to have to sit here and wait.

"I'd like that too Tommy."

Tommy sits there, stunned, and he's forgetting to breathe, and he's smiling unabashedly, and he wishes Alfie were here, he'd kiss him, put his hands on Alfie's hips, push him back into the desk and-

"Do you have anything scheduled for tomorrow?"

"No mate, nothin' important."

"Why don't you come by? We can... discuss the details of our new agreement."

"Yeah. I can do that."


End file.
